The crops are taken from the original images, saved as High Quality JPEGs in Photoshop CS2 and presented here at 100%. Each number represents 100 lines per picture height (lpph), so a figure of 20 means a resolution of 2000 lpph.

Zoomed-into roughly 3x, the Olympus SP-550UZ delivers 1700 and 1750 lpph of horizontal and vertical resolution respectively. This is the kind of result we’d expect from a 7 Megapixel camera and you can clearly see the jump in resolving power a 10 Megapixel camera like the Canon G7 or Panasonic FZ50 can offer under optimum conditions. That said, the difference in actual real-life detail isn’t that great between the SP-550UZ and the FZ50 as illustrated in our main Outdoor results page.

it’s also interesting to compare the SP-550UZ against the an entry-level DSLR like the Nikon D40. This may only have a 6 Megapixel sensor, but compares favourably in terms of horizontal resolution, albeit falling a little behind in vertical resolution. The most obvious difference though is the sharpness and contrast of the SP-550UZ results below. Admittedly the Nikon D40 does deliver quite punchy results, but the SP-550UZ is clearly softer than many of its rivals. This can also be seen in many of our Gallery shots.